Spark buys Ubiquity to boost data analytics subsidiary Qrious

Spark has signed a conditional agreement to acquire marketing automation provider Ubiquity — which claims to be New Zealand’s only provider of “complete end-to-end marketing automation solutions” — saying the move will boost Qrious’ data analytics software business enabling it to get into the data driven marketing sector.

Spark managing director Simon Moutter justified the move by saying: “It makes a lot of sense and is consistent with our strategy to invest selectively where we see opportunities.”

Spark said it planned to enrich Ubiquity’s agency campaign services and its proprietary marketing automation platform, ‘Engage’, with Qrious’ rich geo-data and analytics capabilities to offer more valuable marketing services.

Qrious CEO David Leach said the deal would enable Qrious to move into data-powered marketing and gain scale and critical mass significantly quicker than if Qrious were to develop similar software capability on its own.

“Qrious has set its sights on becoming the full-service data analytics partner of choice for all New Zealand businesses,” he said.

“With momentum and market performance rapidly building, we are now entering the next phase of our growth. Ubiquity is a mature and well-respected player in the local marketing industry with a large, stable base of blue-chip customers. Bringing the two businesses together supports the ambitious growth aspirations of both companies and offers a great digital solution for the rapidly evolving marketing environment.”

Leach said Qrious’ growth to date had demonstrated that leveraging big data for advanced analytics and insights could deliver significant customer benefit for New Zealand businesses, government and communities.

The manager and co-founder of Ubiquity, Nathalie Morris, said the company’s client base had been asking for deeper analytical expertise and becoming part of Qrious would enable the company to meet that demand. “Building Qrious’ advanced analytics and platform expertise into the Ubiquity platform is a natural next step that will meet the changing needs of a rapidly evolving industry,” she said.

At the end of April Qrious, which was set up in 2014 by Spark, became the first managed service provider in New Zealand for global data management and analytics software company, Cloudera, which offers software built on the open source Hadoop, and which had just gone public on the New York Stock Exchange.

Qrious said it would soon launch a new big data platform that would expand its data analytics offerings and the Cloudera partnership completed a full end-to-end data offering that it believed to be unique in New Zealand.

Copyright 2019 IDG Communications. ABN 14 001 592 650. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of IDG Communications is prohibited.